So, I’ve been a bit busy lately and have been woefully neglecting my blog (my apologies TJ). Trying to buy a house (the house above) will do that to you. After months and months searching for the right house, after one unsuccessful contract and then a couple more months of looking we found the perfect house. The house we have lived in for almost exactly 4 years! So no moving for us on closing day! The house itself is great. Lots of character, needs some (a lot) work but we’ve lived here for 4 years, so we know everything about it. No surprises here.

No surprises until the appraiser came into the picture. We had everything lined up – down payment ready, locked in a great interest rate, found the perfect house, all ready to go. Then the appraiser comes (queue the dramatic music) and she seems nice and friendly – no reason to worry, right?? She looks around for quite awhile, measuring the house, opening cabinets, turning on heaters and then she goes. A week goes by and we get a call from the bank and they tell us we need some repairs before we can close. What?! an appraiser calling for repairs? this makes no sense! Some of the exterior paint is chipping and lord knows that the bank won’t close on a house that has some chipping paint on the garage door. The chipping paint could cause the house to fall down at any moment – how could we have missed this?! In case you are misunderstanding this – these repairs should have no reasonable impact if a bank will loan you money or not, very trivial repairs – but they MUST be completed prior to closing. Oh and the awning over the back door has some dry rot and a bank will not close on any house with dry rot – hell no. And the list goes on…. I guess every house that a bank loans money for must be in perfect shape – fixer uppers are no more!

So instead of basking in the pride of my new found homeowner-ship, I am basking in the glow of my own sweat, using power tools, scraping paint and having nervous breakdowns (yes plural) that this process will never end. Oh and don’t forget, my amazing interest rate expires. The fun is endless.

When you have a day where you go to work for 8 hours, come home and do manual labor for another 3 or so hours – the last thing you want to do is cook a big elaborate meal. But you still want that yummy satisfaction. And that is where this tomato sauce comes into the picture. It’s simple, easy and there are only 3 ingredients (4 including pasta).

This tomato sauce is mysteriously full of flavor even though there are so few ingredients. The butter makes it really rich adding some depth of flavor. It seems to make the sauce a bit on the sweeter side. And the onions add just the right amount of flavor to make this sauce far from boring.

So the next time you are trying to scrape, sand and paint your garage door (it did not always look like this picture) and you are already stressed out and then it starts to rain – you might want to try this dish. The simplicity will remind you that things do come together in unexpected ways.

Simple Tomato Sauce

you can find this recipe in so many places – originally from Marcella Hazen

1 whole onion

1 28 ounce of can of whole, peeled tomatoes (San Marzano if available)

5 Tablespoons of butter (yes, I know the picture shows too much – I put it in the pot before remembering that you don’t need a whole stick!)

Peel the onion and cut in half. Put the tomatoes into a pot and add in the butter and onion. I have found that a more narrow pot works better than a wider pot. With the narrower pot, more of the onion is covered with the tomatoes so you get a more onion-y sauce. Simmer uncovered for approximately 45 minutes. As you are simmering smash the tomatoes against the side of the pot, alternatively you can roughly chop the tomatoes before you put them in the pot. You’ll know that the sauce is done when droplets of fat float freely from the tomatoes.